Europe's Last Days
Two Hours of Darkness
At the heart of the colony of Europe, in one of the most sheltered areas of the entire complex, was what was the very heart of the entire building, the antimatter reactor that supplied it with electrical energy. Europe I, as it was named, in failed reference to Europe II and III, two other reactors that had to be built to share the load and compensate each other, in case of emergencies, but that could not materialize, because of the haste with which the colony had to be finished, because of the imminent arrival of more and more settlers.
Europe I was working to the maximum of its capacity and even so it was insufficient to satisfy all the requirement of the colony, its dangerous charge of antimatter had to be renewed at least once a year and that moment was near, it was a more delicate operation for having to suspend the operation of the reactor for two hours, than for having to replace the charge of the dangerous fuel, that was contained inside magnetic fields to avoid that it had contact with the matter of the external environment.
The frequent suspensions of the electric service, motivated by the need to keep the environmental control system operative and the different processing plants that provided service in the colony, had exacerbated the population over the already habitual conflict caused by the lack of food and the increase in crime.
Protests were frequent in the vicinity of the central core, where the reactor and the Directorate of Electrical Supply were located. For this reason, the already usual extreme security of the area had been doubled, which in reality had only had the effect of further enraged the settlers.
During the shutdown of the reactor, the electrical service of the entire colony would be suspended and even the environmental control system would be stopped. However, this was not a dangerous task, but it was a disturbing one for the entire population, which for two hours would remain in darkness and would lack climate control, so that the outermost sectors of the structure, those closest to the outer wall, would see how its temperature could drop to fifteen degrees, while in the inner sectors, where people tended to take refuge, escaping from the cold, the temperature could rise by about five degrees, which seemed to have the effect of causing more agitation.
While an even more worrying factor than the ambient temperature was the amount of oxygen in the air and even though the amount of this gas, in the colony atmosphere, was more than enough to sustain the population for more than twenty-four hours, even with the system stopped, additional oxygen was also released from the reserve tanks held in case of emergency, in those sectors where the population was concentrated, only to keep calm.
The shutdown of the reactor was planned for the eighth month, when there was still five percent of fuel left to the antimatter cell that was in use, this was done only for safety, to avoid possible damage due to the exhaustion of the cell. During the days prior to the shutdown process, safety in the colony core would be further increased.
At the time of the reactor shutdown, some ten thousand people were crowding the avenues near the central core, the complaints were the same all the time, food, medicine, clean water, and endless more. As the crowd shouted loudly, suddenly the lighting was turned off as well as the fans of the environmental control system, large battery-operated emergency reflectors were turned on by the army to illuminate the crowd.
In the middle of a relatively calm group, shouting slogans in front of the gate that gave access to the main entrance avenue to the central nucleus, was Iris, quiet and silent in the middle of the group with her eyes fixed on the thick bars of the gate.
Other stories from the series The Three Colonies
- Europe's Last Days - Prelude
- Europe's Last Days - Iris
- Europe's Last Days - Two Hours of Darkness
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